A court has overturned a 2010 ruling which said that blocking The Pirate Bay at the ISP level was "disproportionate". The Antwerp Court of Appeal sided with the Belgian Anti-Piracy Federation in their quest to force two ISPs to block subscriber access to the world's most famous torrent site. Belgacom and Telenet must now implement a DNS blockade of the site within 14 days or face fines.

After the founders of The Pirate Bay lost their 2009 trial, the Belgian Anti-Piracy Foundation (BAF) began pushing two ISPs – Belgacom and Telenet – to block subscriber access to the famous torrent site.

After year-long negotiations between the trio broke down, legal action was the inevitable outcome and in July 2010 their first battle came to a conclusion.

The Antwerp Commercial Court decided that neither ISP would have to block TPB and went on to describe the notion of wholesale site blocking as “disproportionate”.

The ISPs said it wasn’t their position to decide which sites can and can not be accessed by their users. BAF accused them of providing a safe-haven to The Pirate Bay and filed an appeal. The decision in that appeal has just been announced.

The Antwerp Court of Appeal has just overruled the decision of the Commercial Court and has ordered Belgacom and Telenet to initiate DNS blockades of 11 domains connected to The Pirate Bay within 14 days or face fines.

A Pirate Bay spokesperson told TorrentFreak that this measure will only have the opposite effect, as there are many ways to circumvent it. “This will just give us more traffic, as always. Thanks for the free advertising.”

NURPA, a nonprofit Belgian advocacy group which promotes and protects digital rights, freedom of expression, privacy and civil liberties, say they are disappointed with the decision.

Spokesman André Loconte, who contacted TorrentFreak with the news this morning, says the ruling could run into difficulties under Human Rights legislation.

“The decision of the Antwerp Court of Appeal in the case against Belgacom BAF / Telenet sets a dangerous precedent for blocking of content by Internet service providers in Belgium. It is incompatible with the doctrine of proportionality advocated by the European Court of Human Rights,” says Loconte.

By imposing a site-wide blockade, Loconte says the Court of Appeal has disproportionately censored all content indexed by the site, including legitimately available material.